Thursday, April 03, 2008

Pack Your Bags For A Volcano Version Excursion

We're taking a little trip to the B-side of some of my favorite tunes today! I was listening to some of my Volcano and Jah Guidance 45's the other night and as usual I was inspired by what I heard... classic stuff! What has always impressed me about Junjo's productions, aside from the veritable who's who of quality DJs and singers, is of course the superb Roots Radics Versions on the flip side! A lot of the Versions definitely surpass the A-sides in their timeless appeal! So with that in mind, I've decided it was time to start the ball rolling for an ongoing project here at Distinctly Jamaican Sounds... every now and then I'm going to pull a stack of tunes, rip the B-sides, mix 'em up, then share them with you. To me, these scratchy platters really capture the essence of what made "rub-a-dub" era such an amazing time in Jamaican music!

Now the good thing about this project is that I won't have to spend a lot of time writing a tracklist or crediting the record companies that released each tune... for the most part they're all entitled "Version", except for a few that are taken from a 12" where they officially would carry over the name of the vocal version since the instrumental at the end isn't credited or even mentioned but I'm not going to trouble you or myself with that technicality. So pack up and get movin' cause we're taking a 12 track Volcano Version Excursion to J.A. (circa '80 - '85)

Enjoy!